Directed transport born from chaos in asymmetric antidot structures

Abstract

It is shown that a polarized microwave radiation creates directed transport in an asymmetric antidot superlattice in a two dimensional electron gas. A numerical method is developed that allows to establish the dependence of this ratchet effect on several parameters relevant for real experimental studies. It is applied to the concrete case of a semidisk Galton board where the electron dynamics is chaotic in the absence of microwave driving. The obtained results show that high currents can be reached at a relatively low microwave power. This effect opens new possibilities for microwave control of transport in asymmetric superlattices.